Extended urbanization in small and medium-sized cities: the case of Cirebon Indonesia

Although urbanization in smaller cities is arguably not imperative, the future of urban living is no longer expected to be principally in mega-cities. People increasingly live in intermediate and smaller cities, in line with the proportion of people residing in urban areas, which is also gradually rising. Smaller cities in Indonesia, like other smaller cities in the developing world, are relatively densely populated, and many of them are experiencing extended urbanization, thereby exceeding their administrative boundaries. This paper seeks to explore the factors triggering urban development in these smaller cities, for a case in Indonesia. Urban change in Cirebon Region has accelerated in recent years, very much in line with the decentralization policy in Indonesia. This paper shows how urban change is in!uenced by economic restructuring, which encourages people to live closer to the core of the region, representing a new link between the core and new emerging urban areas in the region. This paper reveals these attributes to identify the characteristics of smaller urban centres, thereby contributing a more nuanced image of small cities in general.

Do human resource practices enhance organizational commitment in SMEs with low employee satisfaction?

This paper considers a large matched employee–employer data set to estimate a model of organizational commitment. In particular, it focuses on the role of firm size and management formality to explain organizational commitment in British small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with high and low levels of employee satisfaction. It is shown that size ‘in itself’ can explain differences in organizational commitment, and that organizational commitment tends to be higher in organizations with high employee satisfaction compared with organizations of similar size with low employee satisfaction. Crucially, the results suggest that formal human resource (HR) practices can be used as important tools to increase commitment and thus, potentially, effort and performance within underperforming SMEs with low employee satisfaction. However, formal HR practices commonly used by large firms may be unnecessary in SMEs which benefit from high employee satisfaction and positive employment relations within a context of informality.